Oil Dependency
I was listening to a 60 Minutes podcast regarding the oil in Saudi Arabia, and they were talking about how much oil the Saudi's have; approximately 130 billion barrels of oil in their reserves. Apparently the only other place on the planet that rivals that amount of oil in reserves is Canada. And a big portion of the oil that is produced in Canada is from the oil sand region of Northern Alberta.
The Saudi's have funded a project in which they had to build a road out into the desert and they literally had to move a sand dune in order to build the drilling platform on which they will harvest the oil from. A problem they have to overcome is that there is not enough pressure in the well to actually pump the oil out, so they also built a pipeline from the ocean to the well site in order to pump salt water into the well to increase the pressure. With the world's current consumption of oil, they estimate that this well project has enough oil in it to sustain drilling for more than 50 years.
Back to Canadian oil. Canada sits on one of the largest oil reserves in the world but the problem is that it is all trapped in oil sands. A heavy sticky, almost tar like consistency which makes it difficult to extract and process. A lot of oil is harvested by way of digging up oil sands (strip mining) and then extracting it from the contaminants by heating it with steam or hot air. There is another process in which they pump steam or hot air down into the well in order to separate the oil from the contaminants (sand,soil, etc.). The problem with these processes is that it requires a lot of energy to heat water into steam to then pump into the wells or to process the extracted oil sands. Natural gas is typically used to heat water into steam that is used for this process but it's inefficient and costly.
There has been talks of the government and oil companies looking at getting nuclear reactors online to generate power to heat water that will extract oil. I know environmentalists and tree-huggers will be up in arms if a nuclear powerplant program ever gets put into place in Northern Alberta around 2017, but it will actually make more environmental sense to do so. Burning Natural Gas to heat water is not as efficient, and produces a lot of carbon waste into the atmosphere.
CANDU Reactors, Canadian designed reactors are amoungst the safest nuclear reactors in the world. The fact that they are able to use spent fuel rods from other types of traditional reactors and use semi-refined ore material means they are extremely efficient and cost effective ways of generating power, as well as recycling nuclear waste.
There's misconception that nuclear power spews radioactive particals into the air or that they produce tons of toxic waste. This simply isn't true. The smoke stacks that are commonly associated with nuclear plants are actually steam chimneys, so really it's just hot water that is being pumped into the atmosphere and not carbon dioxide, soot and other environmental contaminents like in convential coal burning generators. The only thing that a CANDU reactor does produce in very, very small amounts is Tritium, which is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, but this also occurs naturally in nature when cosmic rays interact with particles in our atmosphere. Tritium particals are captured within the reactor to help sustain the nuclear reaction so very little is "leaked" out. The waste or spent fuel rods from CANDU reactors are actually quite safe and have lower levels of radiation that the material going into the reactor.
I believe that building of these reactors might also serve to help us as a contenient by weening us off our reliability on oil and provide a cost effective method of generating electricity to power all of our vehicles and homes in the next 50 year
I think it's about time to get a program like this running to make the extraction of fossil fuels less harmful to our environment, more efficient and cost effective in North America. To cut back on foreign dependency of oil resources and start putting money back into the hands of people that live here, rather than building empires of wealth in the Middle East. I believe Obama made an interesting comment during his inauguration, he said it was time to stop funding our enemies, and that's really what's been going on for the last 60 years. Our governments and corporations have been complacent upon pouring wealth into areas that were once merely tribal villiages and now they have enough wealth to begin a war against the West, as they put it.
I do not hate the Middle East, I have many friends of Middle Eastern decent but there's just too much turmoil that has happened in the past decade that's affecting the world and we're funding it all by buying their resources. If we can cut off the economic arm of a country or area that harbor terrorists, do you think they will be able to continue attacking? They require money to buy guns, bombs and setup a network of terror. They would realize soon enough that they need us more than we need their oil. We cannot continue to live in fear, we cannot continue to be attacked, we cannot sustain sending more resources - troops and supplies - to deal with a problem that could be dealt with by severing relations. The US has an embargo against Cuba, so why can't we just have an embargo against the Middle East, at least until they realize that biting the hand that feeds you isn't the way to live. They don't "Western influence" in the Middle East so let's just get out and let them sort it out themselves.
Sorry for the rant, I've had this article in draft for over a month now, and I just wanted to get it out. It may not end off the most politically correct, but I am tired of hearing about a war I want no part of and a conflict that shouldn't affect me but it does. Everytime I hear that innocent people are dying around the world I think to myself, why can't we all just get along and what did those people do to deserve it. Peace and love to all.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands
http://www.encana.com
60 Minutes Podcast on Saudi Oil - MP3 File
The Saudi's have funded a project in which they had to build a road out into the desert and they literally had to move a sand dune in order to build the drilling platform on which they will harvest the oil from. A problem they have to overcome is that there is not enough pressure in the well to actually pump the oil out, so they also built a pipeline from the ocean to the well site in order to pump salt water into the well to increase the pressure. With the world's current consumption of oil, they estimate that this well project has enough oil in it to sustain drilling for more than 50 years.
Back to Canadian oil. Canada sits on one of the largest oil reserves in the world but the problem is that it is all trapped in oil sands. A heavy sticky, almost tar like consistency which makes it difficult to extract and process. A lot of oil is harvested by way of digging up oil sands (strip mining) and then extracting it from the contaminants by heating it with steam or hot air. There is another process in which they pump steam or hot air down into the well in order to separate the oil from the contaminants (sand,soil, etc.). The problem with these processes is that it requires a lot of energy to heat water into steam to then pump into the wells or to process the extracted oil sands. Natural gas is typically used to heat water into steam that is used for this process but it's inefficient and costly.
There has been talks of the government and oil companies looking at getting nuclear reactors online to generate power to heat water that will extract oil. I know environmentalists and tree-huggers will be up in arms if a nuclear powerplant program ever gets put into place in Northern Alberta around 2017, but it will actually make more environmental sense to do so. Burning Natural Gas to heat water is not as efficient, and produces a lot of carbon waste into the atmosphere.
CANDU Reactors, Canadian designed reactors are amoungst the safest nuclear reactors in the world. The fact that they are able to use spent fuel rods from other types of traditional reactors and use semi-refined ore material means they are extremely efficient and cost effective ways of generating power, as well as recycling nuclear waste.
There's misconception that nuclear power spews radioactive particals into the air or that they produce tons of toxic waste. This simply isn't true. The smoke stacks that are commonly associated with nuclear plants are actually steam chimneys, so really it's just hot water that is being pumped into the atmosphere and not carbon dioxide, soot and other environmental contaminents like in convential coal burning generators. The only thing that a CANDU reactor does produce in very, very small amounts is Tritium, which is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, but this also occurs naturally in nature when cosmic rays interact with particles in our atmosphere. Tritium particals are captured within the reactor to help sustain the nuclear reaction so very little is "leaked" out. The waste or spent fuel rods from CANDU reactors are actually quite safe and have lower levels of radiation that the material going into the reactor.
I believe that building of these reactors might also serve to help us as a contenient by weening us off our reliability on oil and provide a cost effective method of generating electricity to power all of our vehicles and homes in the next 50 year
I think it's about time to get a program like this running to make the extraction of fossil fuels less harmful to our environment, more efficient and cost effective in North America. To cut back on foreign dependency of oil resources and start putting money back into the hands of people that live here, rather than building empires of wealth in the Middle East. I believe Obama made an interesting comment during his inauguration, he said it was time to stop funding our enemies, and that's really what's been going on for the last 60 years. Our governments and corporations have been complacent upon pouring wealth into areas that were once merely tribal villiages and now they have enough wealth to begin a war against the West, as they put it.
I do not hate the Middle East, I have many friends of Middle Eastern decent but there's just too much turmoil that has happened in the past decade that's affecting the world and we're funding it all by buying their resources. If we can cut off the economic arm of a country or area that harbor terrorists, do you think they will be able to continue attacking? They require money to buy guns, bombs and setup a network of terror. They would realize soon enough that they need us more than we need their oil. We cannot continue to live in fear, we cannot continue to be attacked, we cannot sustain sending more resources - troops and supplies - to deal with a problem that could be dealt with by severing relations. The US has an embargo against Cuba, so why can't we just have an embargo against the Middle East, at least until they realize that biting the hand that feeds you isn't the way to live. They don't "Western influence" in the Middle East so let's just get out and let them sort it out themselves.
Sorry for the rant, I've had this article in draft for over a month now, and I just wanted to get it out. It may not end off the most politically correct, but I am tired of hearing about a war I want no part of and a conflict that shouldn't affect me but it does. Everytime I hear that innocent people are dying around the world I think to myself, why can't we all just get along and what did those people do to deserve it. Peace and love to all.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CANDU_reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands
http://www.encana.com
60 Minutes Podcast on Saudi Oil - MP3 File